Histological Evaluation of Healing Following Ridge Preservation Using a Combined Cortical/Cancellous Mineralized Freeze-Dried Bone Allograft

The study is designed to examine histologic wound healing following ridge preservation using cortical bone allograft, cancellous bone allograft, or a combination of both cortical and cancellous bone allograft. This entire protocol involves procedures that are standard care. All materials are FDA-approved materials being used in an FDA-approved manner. The study is a 3-arm, parallel-design, randomized, prospective clinical trial. The test group subjects will have extraction sockets grafted with a combination of 50% cortical/50% cancellous FDBA. This test group will be compared to two active control groups - one using 100% cortical FDBA and the other using 100% cancellous FDBA. The null hypothesis is that there will be no significant difference in formation of new vital bone between treatment groups (primary outcome). Each subject will provide a single non-molar tooth site for study treatment. After tooth extraction, the graft material will be placed and covered by a non-resorbable membrane. Following 18-20 weeks of healing, the dental implant will be place, at which time a core of bone will be removed from the site as part of the preparation for the implant. The core biopsy will then be evaluated for the primary histologic outcome of % vital bone formation and secondary histologic outcome of % residual graft material.